


lone star

by liberteas



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Astronaut Ivan, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Modern AU, Scientist Yao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27487585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liberteas/pseuds/liberteas
Summary: Human AU. Aspiring astronaut Ivan Braginski meets a strangely beautiful man at his workplace, a physicist who goes by the name of Wang Yao. Captivated by his charm, Ivan pursues him. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to either of them, this is a relationship doomed with a time limit. But Ivan doesn’t know that, and both of them are in too deep to care about the fallout.
Relationships: China & Russia (Hetalia), China/Russia (Hetalia), RoChu - Relationship
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	lone star

**Author's Note:**

> Based off Merasgar's Rochu AMV on youtube: [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diqwpEt5hVc&ab_channel=Merasgar)
> 
> Please check them out, their art is AMAZING!!!  
> They also post art on twitter and tumblr @Merasgar !!!

* * *

The wind rustled through the long stalks of grain, swaying gently like the rippling waves of a golden sea. In the very centre of the field Ivan stood, watching the birds of prey circle above him, wailing piercingly, the entire field empty of humanity save for him. In his gloved hand he held a crumpled photograph, a portrait of a young man.

_Yao,_ he whispered. _Yao._

In the fields of his homeland, the memories of the past he had tried so hard to bury began to resurface in his mind, like a bubble struggling upwards to break the water’s surface.

  
  
  
  


________

  
  
  
  


Ivan had always wanted to be an astronaut, ever since he was a child. As a little boy he had used to gaze at the night sky in enraptured wonder, marvelling at the glittering stars spelling their stories across the canvas of the universe.

_Polaris. Vega. Sirius. The Pleiades._

He’d held toy rockets in his chubby hands, imagining himself up there in space amongst the stars, circling around the earth in constant orbit, watching over its seven billion inhabitants like a guardian angel.

In some ways he had it better than others, because he had known what he wanted to do from the very first time he saw the beauty of the stars. Some people lived their entire lives running desk jobs without ever finding the passion of their life, or finding them too late. So it was fortunate that Ivan had known from the start that he wanted to study science and engineering, and it was also fortunate that his parents had the will and the means to support his dream, bought him all sorts of books on physics and mathematics and English and let him get lost in the little worlds these books offered him. He had always been tall for his age, with robust health, not to mention well-built from all the exercise he did playing with the boys in his neighbourhood, and he made sure to maintain his sturdy physique, going on daily runs. There was no doubt that he could pass the physical, and pass it easily.

His education was uneventful. Once graduated from high school, he went on to study engineering in Moscow, graduated at the top of his class, and landed a job in an aerofoil company after. A few years later, after a new promotion, he applied to the space programme with glowing commendation from his bosses. 

The anticipation in the days after his final interview waiting for his results was the most nerve-wracking week of his life. He still never forgot the moment he opened that fateful letter, unfolded the cream-coloured letter paper with trembling hands, and read the printed words in an amalgam of fear and excitement.

They accepted him. He had put down the letter on the table, overwhelmed, and called for his mother in the kitchen, and she had come into the room and rejoiced at the news with him.

Though he was nearly delirious with joy that he had made it, he was no fool to think that this was the end of all his hard work. This was, of course, just the beginning of his career as a cadet-in-training. All the hard work before had simply paved the way up to this glorious gate. Alcohol had flowed freely that night, and the house was filled with laughter and joy. Next week, he would no longer be here with his family, but in one of the little towns in the outskirts of the countryside where the space facilities were based.

It was then and there that he met Yao.

  
  
  


________

  
  
  
  


Yao had been a scientist at the space programme, transferred here to Russia from Beijing. He kept his ebony hair long, tied in a sleek elegant ponytail, dark hair framing the sides of his pointy face. He had a willowy frame, his figure delicately fine-boned, and the first time Ivan saw him from behind, he almost mistook him for a girl.

Then Yao had straightened up from his work desk and turned around, pushed his glasses back his nose bridge, and held his hand out for Ivan to shake.

“Hello. You must be the new recruit joining the astronaut programme. My name is Wang Yao, but you can call me Yao.” He’d smiled at Ivan, chocolate brown eyes crinkling into crescents, and something in Ivan’s chest dropped to the pit of his stomach when he took the proffered hand and clutched its solid warmth.

“I am Ivan,” he said slowly, feeling extremely aware of how tiny Yao’s hand seemed encircled within his own. “Ivan Braginski. Nice to meet you too. Please take good care of me in the coming days.” The pleasantries rolled off his tongue on pure reflex, but Ivan’s mind was on wildly different things, such as the almond shape of Yao’s dark eyes, the slim profile of his nose, and the sensual snare of the cupid’s bow of his lips. Ivan felt awkward, fumbling over every syllable of the words he was saying, hyper-aware of himself in a way he had not felt in years, not since he had stolen his first kiss and held more than just girls’ hands as a hot-blooded teen. At a total loss, he cast about for something to say next.

“So, Yao. Tell me more about your work.”

Yao smiled back at him, clearly pleased and flattered at the rare attention — after all, not many people were interested in the complicated and tedious maths behind the rockets and the satellites, unaware of Ivan’s ulterior motives, and led him to his workstation guilelessly. His warm brown eyes welcomed him without reserve, and Ivan almost felt guilty. Almost.

  
  
  


________

  
  
  
  


Their dance of courtship was a short and brief one. 

After their first meeting Ivan often visited Yao at his workstation despite having no particularly pressing reason to be there, hovering there idly just to chat. Yao, a sharp one, had caught on to what he was doing, and returned lingering touches of his own, too, casually grabbing Ivan by the wrist — not yet by the hand, of course, that would be strange— but only at the junction where arm met palm, when he wanted to draw his attention to something interesting. One good evening Ivan hedged the possibility of a dinner together after work, and Yao replied with a smile brighter than the sun.

Over the course of many more dinners and dates Ivan would come to learn about Yao’s past, the childhood ambition he had once shared with Ivan, the reason why his eyes sometimes grew sad and longing when he caught sight of the astronaut memorabilia Ivan collected and kept on his study desk.

“I had wanted to be an astronaut too,” Yao confided in quiet tones, when they were alone together in the privacy of their living room. They had moved in together recently. Huddled together on the couch, they were looking at an old photo album, the book lying open at a page of a younger Yao, looking absolutely excited, standing next to some sort of space exhibit at the local science museum.

“What happened?” Ivan asked, softly, resting his hand atop the back of Yao’s, rubbing at it soothingly.

“I had an accident. I broke my arm, and they fixed it up wrong.” Yao said simply, not elaborating further, and Ivan knew better than to push him and dredge up the scars and disappointments from the past. “So I turned to scholarly pursuits instead, turned to the numbers and the formulas, because the numbers and the constants didn’t judge. It didn’t matter if I had 20/20 vision or what height I was or if I could run eight kilometres in thirty minutes. The numbers didn’t judge. They were just there, for me to solve.”

“And then you became the most sought-after space physicist in all of Asia.” 

“You flatter me too much.” 

“Don’t you try to pretend to be humble in front of me, Yao. I know your true colours. You are prideful, but you hide it with your quiet unassuming demeanour.”

“I wish you wouldn’t expose me like that,” Yao half-smiled, the mirth reaching his eyes. “On the other hand, aren’t you the latest hotshot right now? I heard you’re in line to be the delegate to be sent to International Space Station when the next personnel shuffle comes around. I’ll certainly miss you terribly when you’re away.”

“That’s still a long way off,” Ivan said, looking down and interlacing his fingers with Yao’s. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Yao remained quiet, gazing into Ivan’s pale violet irises. He brought a hand up, cupping it against the side of Ivan’s face, and leaned in to kiss him. Their eyes fluttered closed, and Ivan reciprocated the kiss, pressing his tongue between Yao’s parted lips to explore within. Their lips slanted over each other again and again, and when they pulled away for air after what seemed like an eternity, Yao surged forward to bite the vulnerable flesh of Ivan’s throat, sucking and nibbling viciously, until reddened love bites were left all over the pale soft skin.

“When tomorrow comes, you’ll wrap that scarf of yours around your neck again, and no one will be any the wiser. But I’ll know. I’ll know that I left all those marks there, claiming you as mine,” Yao said, holding Ivan’s gaze unwaveringly. 

His hands roved around Ivan’s face, stroking over the angular planes of his nose, the full rounded contour of his forehead, his long-lashed eyes, the strong line of his jaw.

“You are so beautiful,” sighed Yao against Ivan’s skin. “When I first saw you I thought you could not be real.”

“I could have said the same for you,” chuckled Ivan. “When we first met all I could think of was those eyes and those clever lips.”

“Were you thinking of what this wicked mouth could do?” Yao said, and Ivan could hear the smile in his voice.

“Maybe,” Ivan admitted, and exhales sharply in shock as deft hands and a warm mouth finds the throbbing heat between his legs, practised hands pulling aside the layers of cloth between them and releasing the growing erection he had been steadily ignoring for the last ten minutes or so.

“I hope I haven’t disappointed,” said Yao slyly.

“No,” gasps Ivan. “You have not.”

  
  
  


________  
  


Yao was a studious man, and even at night after work he would be found at his desk, head lowered, reading some thick tome on the latest scientific aerofoil advancement or something, writing notes on a notepad off the side. Sometimes Ivan would join him, and watch Yao’s cheap ballpoint scratch over the lined paper in swift elegant strokes, forming the strange pictogram-like characters of his native tongue. Occasionally Yao took it upon himself to teach Ivan some Chinese, when he got too tired of the scientific texts and needed some relief.

“This is my given name, _Yao_ ,” he would say, writing the Chinese character 耀 in brushstrokes as clear-cut and determined as himself. “This character means _to shine, to glitter._ ”

“Like the stars?” Ivan asked, coming to embrace Yao’s hunched figure from behind.

“Yes, like the stars you love so much,” smiled Yao against Ivan’s jaw, nuzzling close. “Maybe that’s a sign that we were meant to be. A boy who loved the stars, and a boy who shone as bright as the stars.”

“Even if I’m not here anymore, I’ll be like the shining stars, guarding and watching over you from afar.”

Yao’s eyes were resolute, unflinching. Overcome with emotion, Ivan turned Yao’s face towards him, and sealed their lips together in silent thanks.

They were so happy together, but as we all know, all good things must come to an end.

________

When Ivan returned from his space mission, he cast his eyes about the faces of the retrieval team for the familiar head of long black hair and almond eyes. But Yao was nowhere to be seen. All throughout the extraction process from the pod, all the way to the dorms that he was allocated for the time being to rest and recuperate from the return flight back to Earth, there was no sign of him. Not even a single text or anything. Ivan spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in the unfamiliar bed, wondering where Yao was. Was he avoiding Ivan for some reason? Had Ivan’s absence during these months watered down his feelings, that he no longer wanted anything to do with him? Just entertaining the possibility of that was almost too hard to bear, but Ivan decided that he had more faith in Yao than that. It must have been something else. He wasn’t allowed to go home yet, still under observation at the astronaut dorms so that they could monitor his health. He knew the training was necessary, that he needed time to recuperate and rebuild his atrophied muscles, but at the same time he was burning with unresolved questions, constantly on edge like sitting with ants in his pants. He decided, when he had the chance, if he were to be brought to the main building at Headquarters, he’d go down to the tech department, and see if Yao was there.  
  


His frustration and unease built for days, until he was finally given the chance to attend a mission debrief at HQ, almost a week after his initial landing.

  
“Did Yao come in today? Have you seen him?” Ivan asked one of the desk job guys that he recognised as Yao’s coworker, when he passed by the tech department offices on his way to debriefing. He knew he was supposed to keep his head on the mission debriefing report, but the conspicuous lack of his lover at retrieval was worrisome. Yao would have come. Yao would not have been absent unless something serious had kept him away.

  
“Oh, Yao? He hasn’t come to work for a while. Haven’t seen his face at HQ much these days. I think he’s in hospital. Inoperable PC, I heard them say, didn’t look good...” The coworker trails off slowly as he realised his slip-up by the ashen expression on Ivan’s face. “Oh shit, I thought you knew... I mean, I thought that he would have told you, fuck, I’m sorry.”

Ivan’s world was reeling. He was dimly aware that he still had a debriefing meeting to go to in ten minutes, that work had to take precedence over the panic rising in his chest, that there could be a dozen different things the letters “PC” could stand for, but something about the pitying look in the coworker’s eye had tipped him off.   
  


“No,” said Ivan numbly. “It can’t be.”

“I’m sorry,” said the coworker weakly, averting his eyes. “I’m so, so, sorry.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments very appreciated :)  
> You may find me on:  
> tumblr @libertea [here](https://libertea.tumblr.com/)  
> twitter @_liberteas [here](https://twitter.com/_liberteas)


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